With the release of xXx and Die Another Day, it comes as no surprise that Hollywood, still reeling from the effects of the most recent Writers’ Guild strike, should turn to the world of international espionage to draw box office ticket sales. In doing so, they have produced two largely unsuccessful comedies – one intentional, the other not – featuring respectable performers keenly supported, but not rescued by, a selection of well-known West Coast composers. One is Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever, music composed by Don Davis, and the other:

Despite its lightweight subject matter (A chauffeur
unwittingly dons a tuxedo from his boss's wardrobe finding that it gives him
special powers, thrusting him into the closeted world of international espionage
as a result.) and subsequent lukewarm critical reaction, composers John Debney
and Christophe Beck have crafted a score that's both immensely fun and perfectly
suited, if you pardon the weak pun, to this Jackie Chan comedy.

John Debney's contribution to the score further demonstrates
his adeptness with texture programming and drum looping, one that has been infused
in many of his scores of recent years, most notably in the superb Jimmy Neutron
– Boy Genius. Indeed, this score recalls many elements of Jimmy Neutron
in cues such as "Skateboard Chase" and "Demolition program"
with their pulsating techno rhythms, frenetic guitar figurations, and highly-syncopated
brass punctuations. Those elements aside, finale cues such as "Banning
Opens the Pods" and "Banning Swallows Queen" demonstrate a greater
refinement of his technique, a successful marriage of jazz-leanings and anarchic
Hollywood mickey-mousing. For John Debney, then, this scoreprovides the listening
public with an admirable demonstration of how an established composer can take
on the new generation of electronica-honed youngsters and deliver a salubrious,
enjoyable end-result.

Christophe Beck, whose efforts have been heard more
recently in films such Slap Her… She's French and the direct-to-video
thriller sequel The Skulls II, provides eight of the nineteen cues on
the album (John Debney provides the rest, with the exception of the mandatory
song cut – James Brown performing his cult hit "Get Up"), all of which
express great flair and musical deftness. From the outset, with his infectious
"Main Title" and "First Mission", Beck viscerally captures
the surroundings of Jimmy (Jackie Chan) Tong's world with a solid harmonic grounding,
ably supported by intense drum loops and a marvellous feeling of space between
instrumental pairings. Building upon John Debney's witty spy theme, an embellished
blues motif for electric guitar (first heard in the disc's opening cue, "Jimmy's
Tux"), Beck inverts its usage in "Superhuman" and permeates his
underscore with a plethora of interesting contrapuntal ideas, notable in the
scratch-heavy highlight "Demolition" and the icy-cool "Water
Strider".

The album is a pleasure to listen to, though certainly
not one that will appeal to all tastes. Indeed, slight comparison can be drawn
between this and David Arnold's recent super-slick contribution to the Bond
phenomenon, Die Another Day, when suggesting an audience for such an
album. The Tuxedo is a soundtrack which lucidly evokes the supposedly-entertaining
nature of the film, one that has yet to arrive on British shores, and benefits
from the coupling of two adroit composers.